Layout updates from Eric and Cameron

Hall of Fame member, Cameron, is still busy beavering away (his last post is here if you missed it).

“Dear Al,

Yet another instalment.

The third building constructed for the layout was a provender store located at the end of the siding. This most likely would have been used by private feed suppliers for the surrounding dairy farms. There was little in the way of photographs of this building available other than in the background of a few grainy black and white photos. I looked for photos of similar structures to fill in the gaps and filled the shed with feed sacks which more than likely would have been stored in the prototype.

Like my other buildings this is also made with plastic card except for the stumps which are timber dowels. I always keep an eye out for plastic card sheets at the second hand stalls or buy/sell events organised by my local clubs.

I got some comments on the weathering on the previous posts so I thought this might be a good chance to share my method for this. In the past I have tried all sorts of weathering techniques including weathering powders, acrylic paint, real coal, talcum powder etc. These all work well but there is a lot of trial and error before you find the right combination. For these buildings I have just used a few basic enamel colours (gun metal, orange, dark grey and yellow) combined with some dirty turpentine to get the desired effect. I like this method because there is less to remember and it is easy to move between one effect and the next. As with any weathering it is important to work of photos of real weathered objects.

Cameron”

And Eric has given me a nudge too – his latest video is here (here’s his last post).

13 Responses to Layout updates from Eric and Cameron

Some very nice work by both modellers. One thing we should all remember is that real railways try and avoid facing crossovers, simply because they have a higher chance of causing a derailment than a trailing crossover. Tracks are never so heavily occupied that a train cannot be stopped and reversed onto an opposite track when really necessary.

I don’t like people in this hobby who are critical, cranky know-it-alls, so I hope the writer of the first set of comment will take my remarks as being constructive and not too critical. Further I don’t know what country he is from, but it the U.S. England and most of western Europe, most of the railways favor facing point crossovers and facing point entrances to freight yards and passenger terminals wherever practical. Railway engineering practice favor the facing point arrangement because it permits, “progressive movements.” Contrary to what the writer of the first set of comments believes, in most cases where there are multiple mainline tracks (double track or greater) there is high traffic density, or the additional trackage could not be justified. In these high density operations there is rarely time to stop and back a train up. It is frankly dangerous and time consuming. This extra time to back up and move forward again also causes crew costs to rise substantially. Delays on the mainline are costly and railways try to move trains past each other and off the “main” as quickly as possible. Therefore, facing point crossovers and turnouts are used to permit “progressive movement,” wherein the train is always moving forward.

I agree with the comment about facing point movements above. I work as a trainman/conductor/yard foreman for 36 yrs on the Union Pacific and all main line crossovers were facing point movements to keep the train moving. With only two man crews on today’s trains, it could take an hour to back through a crossover since the conductor would have to protect the rear end and then walk up to a mile back to the locomotives. Believe me, as they say he would be “kicking rocks” all the way back. Tim

Cameron’s scratch built store is excellent. I am so pleased to see people are still making stuff instead of just buying it ready made. I use ready to run locos but love to make buildings, some people it’s the other way around, making something of your own, whatever it is, makes a difference.